


Stripes and Sweets

by tiamatv



Series: Stripes [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (But Let's Be Honest Here You All Know I'm Team Switch Forever), Accountant Castiel (Supernatural), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Baker Dean Winchester, Baking, Crafts, Knitting, M/M, Pining, Quarantine, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Top Castiel/Bottom Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24980389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiamatv/pseuds/tiamatv
Summary: "That's the whole thing about Intent and Offerings, right?" Sammy told him, hopefully, staring at the back of Dean's head like he could force him to understand. "The world made that person for you, and you're making something for them.""Yeah... sure, Sam," Dean muttered, watching the mixer twirl on a batch of chocolate chip cookies. "Sure, why not? At least you can't accidentally drop a soulbond stripe down the sink."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Series: Stripes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1808167
Comments: 67
Kudos: 530





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shipperofdarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperofdarkness/gifts).



> [shipperofdarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperofdarkness/pseuds/shipperofdarkness), I honestly was just planning to write you a smutty epilogue. I really was. But I was so completely verklempt over the fact that you practically wrote me a _novella_ in your comment, and you had all these delightful _ideas_! I just kept on writing... and writing... and writing... 
> 
> This would never have existed in its current incarnation if not for the wonderful [zahlibeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zahlibeth), who has been the most patient and encouraging beta imaginable.
> 
> For those of you who are smut sensitive and would prefer to avoid such things, all of it is in Chapter 2!

When Sammy, a few months after they opened Dangerously Delicious’s doors for the first time, asked Dean what he thought about Sam Offering for Jess, Dean laughed. “Yeah, sure, why not, Sammy—you don’t gotta worry about dropping a soulbond down the sink by accident!”

Sammy bitched at him for that, and the face he made was _epic,_ but hey, it was true, wasn’t it? Dean mostly wasn’t kidding (this time). It wasn’t like his little brother could wear a wedding ring at work, and anyone with a working set of eyeballs could tell that Jess was just gonna be it for him.

Dean liked to joke that what _Jess_ was getting out of this deal was a lot less certain. But the last time he said that aloud Sam shoved him hard enough that Dean hit a countertop with a bag of powdered sugar on it, and there were just some places it was _really tough_ to get cornstarch out of.

With Jess being a nurse and all, her having something she wouldn’t have to worry about ruining or sterilizing would probably be good, too. “You know kids and all the, you know… stuff. That comes out of them,” Dean added. And tossed in a couple of hand gestures. Just in case, y’know, Sammy didn’t get it.

“Ewwww, _Dean,_ oh my God. That’s the most _unromantic_ thing I’ve ever heard,” Sam complained.

Well, _yeah_ , Dean didn’t claim he was much of a romantic. Or _any_ kind of a romantic. Only Benny had had red on his wrists in their regiment, and some of the guys had envied him that, though Dean didn’t. Some, joking, had said they pitied Benny’s soulmate. (Some said it not so jokingly.) Dean hadn’t had an opinion about it one way or another, but the pirate ship in a bottle that Benny kept in his foot locker was pretty cool, so he was willing to believe that Andrea was as awesome as Benny made her sound.

Or nearly. Soulmates were kind of funny about things like that.

Anyway, Dean was glad he lived in a day and age when having a soulmate was a great thing if you got it, but if you didn’t, well, the world kept on turning anyway. Sure, if there was someone you wanted to spend your life with that badly, and they felt the same about you, why not? That was cool. But for all that, he wasn’t really sure he understood why that was so different from being married. _Everyone_ went into marriage thinking that they were going into it forever, so what was the big deal?

But Dean _did_ think that getting those stripes would make Sam happy. So he helped Sam go digging into the back of their storage locker—they really needed to clean all this shit out at some point—and there, in a big cardboard box right in the back, were the craft supplies. Both he and Sam were powdered with a couple of decades worth of dust by the time they got everything relocated enough to get it open—holy shit these were Dean’s old nonstick muffin pans, but why did they have all this _yarn?_ Neither of them had ever been string crafters. Sam’s metalsmithing supplies were all in a little metal case near the bottom—crucibles and scales, tongs and wax molds. A jump ring mandrel and about a dozen tiny pliers were wedged in crumbling foam. The box itself had a layer of grime on it, but the stuff in it looked okay.

“I haven’t touched them since I made your amulet,” Sam admitted. He had his hair in a _man bun._ Dean thought Jess should be deducting points just for that. “I should probably practice.”

Dean grinned and ran his thumb over the little horned face he still wore under his t-shirt every day. Sam had presented it to him on the day he’d left for Basic training—and God that seemed like a million years ago. Sammy had still been _shorter_ than him back then. Maybe it _was_ a million years ago, since Sam had clearly turned into a dinosaur at some point. “Hey, I dunno, Sammy, it kept _me_ safe, right?”

Sam glared like he wasn’t sure if Dean was joking. (Dean wasn’t, but he grinned like he was.)

And if that kind of soulbond thing wasn’t for Dean—if he liked keeping his options open, if he liked going out and he liked fresh faces and a new slope to climb every couple of weeks, that was just fine! He’d be a good brother and help Sam out with making his Offering.

Sam just needed to stop trying to convince Dean that stripes were something _Dean_ was gonna want someday. Dean thought he was scot-free when they got out of Storage Wars without Sam saying a peep about it—suspicious, but okay—but no, he wasn’t. Like the asshole little brother he was, Sam was just saving all those words he loved so much for a time when Dean couldn’t even _escape._

“It’s like… it’s like looking at someone, and feeling like the world made them just for you,” he told Dean, even as Dean held the little acetylene torch steady so Sam could rotate the silver solder wire in its flame, using a tiny little pair of tongs to start bending it into an intricate little flower. “So that’s the whole thing about Intent and Offerings, right? The world made them for you, and you’re making something for them.”

“Yeah. Sure, Sam.” Dean only kept himself from shrugging because he was holding a miniature little gas fire in both hands, and _neither_ Sam nor Jess needed any kind of injury anecdote to spice up their cute soulmate love story. He was, grudgingly, really impressed that Sam had learned how to do this in high school. “Okay.”

Yeah, okay. Dean got that. He’d heard all the stories. He’d _watched_ Sam go tumbling head over heels for Jess, and he was really happy for them.

He got it, sure, but he didn’t _get_ it. And, seriously, Dean was perfectly okay with that.

Then he met Cas.

 _Then_ he got it.

 _Fuck_.

*_*_*_*

“Dean?” Sam hissed. “What the Hell are you doing? No, really, what the _Hell_ are you doing?”

“What?” Dean demanded, shaking off Sam’s hand from his arm. “What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“Well, it _looks_ like you’re trying to keep the intense guy in a trenchcoat who came in for some sourdough around closing time from leaving,” Sammy noted, then frowned. “Wait, are you… you aren’t… why is he holding a mop?” Sam turned on him in horror. “Dean, are you making a customer _mop?_ ”

“No! I mean—” except maybe _yes._

“What is wrong with you?” Sam was staring at him.

Dean knew his color was high, and here in the back of house, with the bakery’s kitchen lights still up, Sam couldn’t miss it. “Look, it’s still raining out—the guy came in all wet like a bunny, Sam, I’m not gonna kick him out into that, and—”

“Rain mostly let up a few minutes ago,” Sam observed, “and he’s still _holding a mop.”_ He leaned in to lord his height over Dean in a way that made Dean really, _really_ regret Sam having gone through puberty at any point in his life. The glee that lit his face was _demonic_. “So what color are his eyes?”

“Didn’t notice,” Dean grumbled. Blue. Dark blue, indigo blue, the hour just before dawn when watch was letting up and the troop was starting to stir. He hadn’t been _staring,_ it’d just… well… the guy—Castiel—hadn’t looked away, either! “What’s that got to do with anything?

“Uh-huh.” Shit, Sammy wasn’t just grinning, he was _smirking_.

“You shut up,” Dean muttered. “You just… shut the fuck up.” And then, because it had to be said, _“Sonofabitch.”_

“I’m gonna go talk to this magical bunny. And make him up a package of stuff. Really good stuff,” Sam continued gleefully, beelining towards the leftover croissants. “‘Cause he’s gonna have to deal with you. And _wow_ , I feel bad for him.”

_“I hate you.”_

*_*_*_*

It was the first time in his life that Dean, a goddamned grown man and _not_ some kind of cult-raised sheltered kid who’d just learned about soulbonds, ever caught his eyes falling to the curve of someone’s wrists.

Covered, of course, because it was _Cas_.

By the third time Cas came wandering absently into the bakery, though, looking around every single time like he was walking in lost and needed to ask for directions, Dean knew just how stupid staring at his wrists was, and he stopped.

Correction: he _made_ himself stop doing it up until it became automatic not to look.

Sure, Dean had every expectation that Castiel Novak was never gonna go wrists out—not on pain of death or torture. Not only was Castiel Novak _not_ a soulmate seeker type, Cas was private. He was buttoned-up, and awkward and conservative. Hell, he was so closed up it felt like a _gift_ every time Cas looked up at Dean and shared a little bit more of himself.

Even if it was just that little crooked smile. Maybe especially that. The first time Cas smiled at him over the top of one of Dangerously Delicious’s novelty coffee mugs, looking so quietly pleased with his quiet life, Dean’s bad knee almost buckled out from under him.

When Dean finally got around to finding out what Cas did for his job, though, he couldn’t help but laugh—a _tax_ _accountant,_ really, seriously? “No wonder you’re so good-looking, Cas, here I was pretty sure those only existed on _TV,_ ” he teased.

But Cas? Cas did _not_ take the joke, and he did _not_ blush. Castiel Novak raised his delicate, stubbled chin, bow lips firm and blue eyes blazing in the dim light of the bakery after closing, and replied, “You should show me some respect. I can have you _audited._ ”

Yeah, Dean stared openmouthed, and then had to stumble around and turn his back to start clearing the display cases. And not-so-incidentally, hide his _boner_.

 _Goddammit_.

But Dean had kind of gotten used to all that, by now. He’d gotten used to the grin that automatically lifted his mouth in response whenever Cas came in—when he settled at the corner table and gave Dean a little nod, saying “Hello, Dean,” before settling down with his cup of decaf. He was used to him nodding and not talking to any of the other regulars except to exchange the most basic of basic greetings, but the moment it was just them, saying something… what was it that Sam had called it?

Oh, right. ‘Pithy.’

“Is that another word for ‘so direct it hits you in the face?’” he asked his brainy baby brother.

Sam snorted and crossed his arms. “Dean, I don’t think that’s where Castiel is hitting you.”

(For some reason Sam always thought his height was gonna save him. Dean had been fucking _Airborne_ , man, with all that gangly Sam had going, wrestling the kid to the ground was nearly as easy as when he’d been short.)

Cas always turned the mug around to see which one it was out of the dozens that he and Sam had picked up on their road trip around the USA—him back from the service with a bum knee, Sam a fresh dropout from law school, mugs from tiny towns rattling in the trunk of Dean’s 1967 Chevy Impala.

Dean tried to give him a different one every time, and Cas read what was on every single one, very seriously, before he took his first sip. He drank his coffee with just one squeeze of honey. If it had been a long day, he gave himself a splash of milk. He drank with both hands holding the mug, and he ate his croissants by tearing little flakes off them.

He _really_ liked peanut butter and jelly—not jam, just jelly. God, he was such a _weirdo._

Dean knew the naughty little smile that flicked at the corners of Cas’s mouth like a prick of cayenne pepper. Sometimes the sense of humor lurking under the calm surface like a damned sea monster came up and nipped at Dean’s fingers, and, now and again, at his heart.

Castiel Novak was bossy and adorable and just a little bad-tempered, and just being in his company felt _good_ enough that the pain in Dean’s chest felt like it was worth it, most of the time. Dean had pretty much accepted that.

So no, Dean _didn’t_ expect the way it drove into his gut like shrapnel—yeah, he could say that with authority—to see Cas sitting there knitting in the half-light of the bakery after closing. His hands—dammit, his _hands:_ long-fingered and slim, but _just_ as big as Dean’s own—pulled blue and dappled orange through a complex series of patterns sitting on a pair of plain metal knitting needles. Dean didn’t expect the way it made him _stare_.

It wasn’t even ‘cause he thought Cas was making was some kind of Offering, because Dean really didn’t. He knew him better than that, by now. And it was, just a little, because he was sort of confused about whether Cas was doing some weird hybrid of latch-hook and macrame and knitting, because what was coming off his needles didn’t look like any kind of knitted fabric that Dean had ever seen. It looked like raised orange leaves on a recessed background of blue, almost like tongues of flame, and it _was_ pretty awesome.

It was just… this was _Dean’s_ guy, sitting here knitting quietly and comfortably, in _Dean’s_ space. Except two of those three things might’ve been true but the most important damned one of the three wasn’t, and it wasn’t ever gonna be, and _fuck you, okay, imagination? Fuck you_.

Then Cas gave him a look like he was a starter short of a cinnamon roll, and went for the buttons of his sleeve. Dean’s heart almost _stopped_ at the flash of pale wrist, soft and creamy. (Holy shit he’d really turned into such a perv.)

Yeah, he was in a pretty good mood when he left the bakery that night and saw Cas to his ugly little Toyota, all brightened up by the stories of Cas’s family— _holy shit,_ thirty handkerchiefs. Dean was with Gabriel on that one: what the hell was wrong with the girl?—and the laughter he’d been able to hear in Cas’s deep, dark voice. There was nothing in the whole goddamned world like seeing those tiny smile-creases appear at the corners of Cas’s eyes, watching that heartbreaker blue that’d knocked Dean off his feet all but _twinkle_ with pleasure.

Fuck, he was such a _sap._

Dean thought that a lot of people looked at Castiel Novak and thought he didn’t give a damn. That couldn’t be further from the truth. It’d taken Dean awhile to be able to see all the warmth that Cas had under that chilly, intense exterior—longer to be able to hear it.

Yeah, Dean could hear it now. He could hear it all the time.

Cas loved his family. He put his all into a job that most anyone else would have considered pretty dull. He cared for his friends—and yeah, Dean _was_ part of that number. He was passionate about his _knitting_ , apparently, and wasn’t that a fucking kick in the head.

Some days, the fact that just a little bit of that warmth was Dean’s was enough for him. Even that little bit was more than enough.

Some days it just… wasn’t.

So Dean went back into his bakery and made three dozen chocolate chip cookies, as big as his open hand, because that was what Dean Winchester just did when his own bullshit got to be too much. (What? He only ate one.)

So yeah, by the time he came home, he was just… not in a good mood anymore. Sam and Jess’s door was already closed, and he could hear the elephant grumble of Sammy snoring through it—it was his turn to get up early the next morning and start pulling the overnight brioche and the enriched doughs out of the proofing oven.

Jess looked at him a little worriedly from the sofa when he went straight for the whiskey, but she, like the best sister-in-soul ever, didn’t try to stop Dean when he poured in a fingerwidth, tossed it back, and filled it again. She left the big textbook in her lap open, a finger stuck into the crease of it, like she was going to keep reading. She wasn't, but Dean appreciated that she'd at least pretend not to notice his bullshit.

“Castiel kept you company after closing again tonight?” she asked, softly, and patted the sofa next to her.

She didn’t even pretend to sound surprised. Or like it was really a question.

Dean grunted, but he sat down hard on the edge of the sofa anyway—a firmer kind than he knew Sam liked, but it was kind of hard for Dean to climb his way back out of one of those cushy ones that swallowed his ass when it was at the end of the day and his knee was sending railroad spikes into his thigh. “You know he knits? Really well, too, looks like. I guess that’s his craft.” He thought about just how pathetic he was being, talking about this, then… fuck it. He sighed. “He’s knitting a wedding present for his brother’s soulmate.”

“Oh!” Jess glanced at where Sam had his favorite beanie hung up on a hook on the front door. Yeah, she _should_ look rueful, Dean would stand by his description of that thing as _fucking ugly,_ but Sam wore the lopsided brown and black thing pretty much whenever it was cold enough that his hair wasn’t gonna stick to his head. “Oh, I _really_ wish I’d known that!”

“That’s what I said, too,” and Dean felt himself relax down into the sofa, chuckling a little. Dean had _seen_ people’s eyes drop right down to Sam’s (still covered) wrists after they registered what was sitting on his head, because that was pretty much the only reason anyone should be wearing a hat like that. “I really don’t know what Intent you had going on there, Jessie-girl. Was it revenge for the man-bun?”

Jess nudged him with her shoulder, hard, laughing. Dean rocked sideways on the sofa, almost sloshing his whiskey.

“I like him, you know,” she told him. “Castiel.”

“Yeah.” Dean nudged her back, gentler. “I know.”

Dean did, too. That was kind of the fucking problem.

Unlike Sam, she _didn’t_ point that out, and she _didn’t_ rib him about the fact that he’d never so much as gotten up the balls to ask Cas out for fucking _fast food._ Much less a date. Much less a home-cooked meal. Because Jess was a damned good sister-in-soul.

And unlike with the Sasquatch that she was soulbonded to, Dean _didn’t_ have to threaten to set her hair on fire.

*_*_*_*

Just once, _just once_ , Dean went out and turned his game back on, because for just one night, maybe his wanting could be someone else’s. He flirted, he laughed, he watched her gaze get warmer, pink climbing to her cheeks—Dean was really good at this. He’d always been really good at this.

Her eyes were almost the right shade of blue, but not quite.

Not quite.

He went home alone, and he made a dozen carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing for Jess to bring with her to work the next day. He even saved one aside for Sam, ‘cause, vegetable.

He didn’t go out like that again.

*_*_*_*

Whoever said that absence made the heart grow fonder knew exactly what the fuck they were talking about, and they were also an asshole that completely forgot to mention how much the absence could hurt.

So much for thinking that maybe time apart would make Dean feel _better_ about his hopeless crush on the awkward, gorgeous guy who’d walked into Dean’s bakery in the middle of a storm, soaking wet, and proud as _fuck_.

“You could tell him. You really _should_ tell him, at this point,” Sam told him, over a bowl of rising sourdough big enough that it looked like his head was floating over it.

Dean stared into the frothy bubbles whipping around the metal bowl and considered turning the mixer up high enough that he could pretend he couldn’t hear. But that could potentially overbeat the meringue, and if it split, he didn’t really want to have to separate something like fifty eggs again, either. The Plague meant that they couldn’t get pre-separated egg whites anymore, but at least he’d have plenty of yolks for brioche. Maybe some of those extra-rich cookies with the browned butter. Those were always really popular, people bought them by the dozen.

He didn’t want to have this conversation again. He’d never wanted to have it ever _,_ but he definitely didn’t want to have it again _now_. _Especially_ since there was no escape from Sam these days. He loved his ginormo little brother, and yeah, they’d lived together _and_ worked together before any of this, but being stuck with him almost literally twenty-four-seven was like being back in _high school_ all over again.

Except as adults. Which was somehow worse. Freaky Friday could suck his—

“Yeah, I’ll do that. Right smack in the middle of quarantine. So he could run off and never come back, because that’s what people do when their _friends hit on them_. Oh, yeah, that’s brilliant, Sammy.” Dean shook his head, and started sifting the sugar that he’d pulsed through the food processor. “I’m not gonna be that creep. We’re just good friends, and that’s fine. You know?”

Sam didn’t rise to Dean’s tone. He just crossed his arms. “Before all this started, at least one to two days a week Cas stayed after closing, just to keep you company. Just to keep. _You._ Company. Just you and him in a half-dark bakery. _After closing._ ” Sam’s shrug moved all down his back and into his hips. “Exhibit A: I’m pretty sure I’ve never done that for anyone I’ve been friends with. Exhibit B: I consider Cas a friend, I like to think he considers _me_ one, and he’s sure as Hell never offered that for me _,_ Dean.”

Exhibit A? What the Hell. Dean wasn’t feeling mean enough to tease Sam about the fact that he’d dropped out of law school after his first year. There was a possibility he was feeling _just_ mean enough that Sammy would take anything he said about it to heart.

In another life, Dean would have absolutely made a joke about Sam maybe mistaking real life for the starting scene of some pretty good pornos Dean had watched, because for a tall-ass adult with a soulbond Sam always started _spluttering_ when Dean started talking about porn. But just how _far_ that joke was from Dean’s reality hurt a little too close to home.

“Exhibit C: Cas is weird, and he doesn’t interact with anyone like a normal person does,” Dean retorted, watching his egg whites whip.

It sometimes meant that Cas seemed to realize shit that _no-one_ else did.

Dean didn’t know _how_ Cas had seen it, but he was pretty sure Cas knew that closing up the empty bakery in the half-dark made Dean achy in a way that it didn’t make Sam—like a half-empty barracks room that’d once been full. He _didn’t_ know if it was friendship or pity or what it was that made Cas stay, but there was only so far Dean was willing to question the good things in his life.

He’d done it once—teased Cas about it, once, after closing, when the sight of Cas’s cocked head and his little smile as he quietly watched Dean clean up were too close to wrecking him. He told him “Aw, what’re you still doing here?” and kicked one of the chair legs, gently. “Listen, buddy, you can’t stay.”

Cas just blinked at him, and rather than assuming—like anyone would—that he was getting kicked out, he folded his hands in front of him. “Dean,” he said, as seriously as if they were having a real conversation and Dean wasn’t just being an asshole who couldn’t deal with how needy he was feeling. Then, to Dean’s surprise, he gently nudged a chair out for _Dean_ to sit on. Like they weren’t in Dean’s own goddamned bakery. “You know I always enjoy our talks, and our time together.”

That was the day Dean told him about his knee, and the scars on his arms.

The soft, still time at the end of the day, or just after closing, had always been _his_ time with Cas. He hadn’t had that in… awhile. Months, now.

“He interacts with you _plenty_ ,” Sam pointed out. “You know, in his own awkward way.”

“That’s ‘cause Cas is good people, Sam, and in case you haven’t noticed, we never hung out anywhere _but_ in Double D,” Dean snapped. “What difference would me saying anything make?”

He refused to admit out loud how much it _had_ hurt when he’d finally gotten up the gumption to mention, hey, yeah, if Cas wanted to join him and Sam out—just friends, fuck, _just friends_. Honestly! That was all Dean had had the courage to ask for, drinks as a trio, but he’d really thought, maybe…

Well, he’d been wrong. Cas had tilted his head and looked at him like sparrows looked at plastic butterflies before politely, answering “No, thank you.”

“It would keep you from biting my head off nearing the end of every two weeks—until he comes in for his croissants and you get your fix of smiling at him behind your mask like an idiot again!” Sam ground back, dumping the giant wobbly contents of the proofing bowl out onto a floured countertop. “Look, Dean, you can make a _million_ cookies and it’s not going to make you feel better. I understand, I really do—”

No, Sam really didn’t.

“—but you can’t keep on like this.” The tone was all business. But the sympathy in his little brother’s eyes was _unbearable_.

Dean sighed, and used the heel of his hand to rub his eyes. Then went to wash them again. “Sure I can,” he told the sink. “We’re just friends. That’s it. To infinity and beyond, Sammy.”

Sam stopped, and slowly put down the bench scraper he was using to separate the gigantic pool of sourdough into something that wasn’t big enough to swim in. “Did you just quote ‘Toy Story’ at me?”

“Did you just recognize a quote from ‘Toy Story?’” Dean retorted, and turned back to his meringue.

Yeah, it was gonna be a brown butter cookie with extra egg yolk kind of night.

*_*_*_*

Dean didn’t know if he was going to laugh or cry when Cas put that little Ziplock down on the side table and backed out the door like Dean had just Transformered right into Godzilla—it was a scene just like something out of a Japanese rubber suit show, with Cas as one of those innocent bystanders who needed to escape the big flirt monster. Shit, he flirted at Cas all the time, sure—most of the time Dean was pretty sure it went zooming right over Cas’s head—but it was the first time he’d ever intentionally flirted _with_ him.

He hadn’t been able to help himself, though. Maybe Cas didn’t realize that even with his mask on, when he blushed it was _very_ visible still, across the bridge of his nose and frosting his pretty cheekbones. And yeah, he’d _seen_ the little dip of it when Cas stuck his tongue out behind the mask.

Dean had never seen that in real life. He could _imagine_ it so clearly, that little flick of rebellious pink tongue, that it grabbed him in the gut. (Maybe lower.) He hadn’t been able to help himself.

 _“Don’t write checks you can’t cash?”_ Right. Don’t feed the horny baker, more like.

Him finding Cas stumbling over his words cute was completely counterproductive, Dean was pretty sure, especially since Dean’s big mouth had sent Cas fleeing out the door this time. And on a day when Cas had done something nice for them just ‘ _cause_.

Fucking masks. Dean wondered if this was weird obscure sideways karma for every time he’d complained to Sam about them having to wear hairnets at the bakery. The masks were so much worse. The things never _fit_ right—Dean wasn’t even claustrophobic, and the closed-in feeling was still better than wearing a combat helmet or a balaclava, but they pulled his ears forward, or slipped down his nose when he talked. He wore them, of course he did, but he was just a _teeny tiny_ bit jealous of the fact that Cas had made one for Jess that fit her so nice.

(Because, again: good people.)

So even Dean’s episode of open mouth, insert dick, couldn’t keep him from grinning happily as he wandered over and picked up the little Ziplock baggie. Yeah, that mask at the front there was definitely for Jess—pediatric, too, covered with teddy bears wearing little pink and green and blue stethoscopes. He rolled his eyes when he saw Sam’s—covered with books; sometimes Dean really _wasn’t_ teasing when he told Sam that Cas liked him better.

The third mask instantly put paid to that, though.

The little slices of cherry pie floating winged on a blue background were bright and gaudy on the surface of the quarantine mask. The elastic straps on the side of it? Flaming red. It was completely fucking ridiculous.

“Dean, this cherry pie song is very obscene,” Cas had told him, disapprovingly.

“Cas, the fact that you recognize that it’s obscene gives me hope for the world,” Dean remembered answering, and Cas’s eye roll had been _everything_.

Dean’s grin was so wide it hurt as he looked down at the little piece of cloth in his hands. He hadn’t had his hands on a sewing machine since the last time he’d had to hem a pair of pants in the service, but even he could tell this little quarantine mask was neater work than he’d ever done: the cloth with double-sided interfacing and the creases ironed in with a neat little pocket in between, a little packet of filters sitting at the bottom of the ziplock bag.

Cas had made him something. Cas had made him a mask, and it was _awesome_.

It wasn’t—it wasn’t like that. Dean knew it wasn’t. Of course it fucking _wasn’t._

But still. Cas had gone handmade for _him_ , pretty undoubtedly just for him, and—and that meant something. Even if it was only a little something. His heart hurt and his eyes stung and okay, Dean knew he was being fucking _ridiculous_ now, considering that Jess’s and Sam’s masks were sitting right there too.

 _Slow your damned roll, Winchester._ For all he knew Cas had made dozens of the damned things. Hell, he probably had. Dean swallowed and nodded to himself. Yeah, he almost certainly had.

But this one was _Dean’s_ , and that was enough.

Then his wrist prickled hard.

Dean frowned—he’d been manning the front of house since this morning, and he definitely hadn’t burned himself making anything earlier. He went to tuck the masks back into their baggie and it wasn’t a prickle anymore, it was a _stab._ He dropped the Ziplock back to the table, hissing, and undid the sleeve of his flannel in a hurry, shoving it up to his elbow.

Red burned in a slow, bright circle around his left wrist, like the reflection of a summer sunset on Baby’s rims.

It happened so _fast_. Dean didn’t understand. He didn’t understand for awhile. He just stood there, watching the scarlet stripe form, running his other thumb up and down it like he’d be able to feel something different on his skin if he touched it. It tingled under his fingers, but it didn’t hurt anymore.

It was kind of pretty, he thought, from somewhere far away. Like a bracelet. Huh.

“Hey, Dean, was that Cas? How’s he—”

Dean didn’t look away from the bright red stripe that was fully formed on his wrist, now. He couldn’t, really.

Which was why he almost _died_ at the crash of four industrial-sized aluminum baking pans hitting the floor and the sound of his brother jumping up and down like he’d forgotten he was the size of a _giraffe,_ whooping “ _Holy fucking shit!”_

*_*_*_*

“You realize it’s still too cold out for you to be wearing short sleeves, Dean?” Sam told him, like Dean wasn’t a grown adult who had also _changed Sammy’s goddamned diapers_. “Frostbite really isn’t romantic.”

“What’s romance got to do with it?” Dean snorted, and tugged the hem of his simple black short-sleeved t-shirt over his jeans, twisting in front of the mirror to look at his reflection. “We own a _bakery_ , man, there’s no fewer than six ovens going at any one time. Our place was a cozy 74 degrees in the middle of _Snowmaggedon_ last year.” He looked down at the bright red stripe on his left wrist, and ran a thumb along the length of it, proudly. He could still feel his heart beating in his ears every time he touched it. “So what if I wanna show off sometimes? You afraid of my perky nipples, Sammy?”

“Oh my God, _oh my God_. He’s going to be worse than that brother of Castiel’s who won’t stop talking about his Offering,” Sam muttered, tugging hard on the sleeves of his own flannel like hiding his stripes would somehow make _Dean’s_ sleeves longer. “I didn’t think that was possible.”

“Oh, shush, Sam.” Jess grinned at him, and reached over to pat proudly at Dean’s bare elbows with both hands. “Dean, you look _great_. It’s really sexy.”

Dean grinned, clicked his tongue, and shot her finger-guns.

“That, however, is not.”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, it’s official. I’m never going wrists-out,” he announced, looking Dean over again and shaking his head hard enough the tips of his hair—shoulder-length, now, since he wouldn’t let Jess _or_ Dean cut it—hit him in the face.

“No-one asked you to, dear,” Jess told him, so sweetly that Dean was pretty sure Sammy’s sleeves were going to be rolled up, like, _tomorrow_.

Best sister-in-soul _ever._

*_*_*_*

_http://snopes.com/50-hottest-urban-legends/_

** Accidental Soulbond: Romance or Reality? **

**Claim:** It is possible to coerce, trick, or otherwise involuntarily cause another individual to form a soulbond.

 **Rating:** FALSE

_In May 2013, Tom Cruise announced during a Fox News interview that Katie Holmes had “tricked” him into the formation of their soulbonds. This sparked the year-long investigation that ultimately led to the discovery that their soulbonds had been tattooed just prior to their marriage, in accordance with the body of religious beliefs and practices of Scientology._

_“All available evidence suggests that a coerced or ‘accidental’ soulbond is not possible,” social scientist Leon Tañada told NBC News. “While the physiology remains poorly understood, it is very clear that only the two people involved in the creation of the soulmate relationship can catalyze the process. The creation of an Offering must by its very nature have its focus on the recipient, as Kennedy’s experiments in the forties showed, abhorrent as we now see them. The act of acceptance must also be reciprocal.”_

_The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) categorizes the belief that a person has formed a soulbond to an individual who is not their soulmate under Somatic Symptom and Related disorders, similar to conversion disorder and pseudocyesis—_

“Google, you suck,” Dean told his laptop, and slammed it closed.

*_*_*_*

“Dean?”

“Yeah, what, Sammy?” Dean asked the inside of his right elbow, where his face was resting down against it. Two weeks. It’d been two _weeks,_ now.

Sam made a sigh that sounded a whole lot like _“Well, at least you’re not baking again_.”

Dean didn’t know what the hell Sam had to complain about, people fucking _loved_ the things he made when he was baking his goddamned feelings. The cookies were always gone within hours, and people called in asking about them. What with all the shit Jess and the other nurses had to deal with at work, sending her in with quickbreads was the least he could do.

And if it distracted Dean from the fact that his soulmate didn’t actually seem to want him, who could possibly have a problem with that?

“Cas is coming to the bakery. Tomorrow. At ten.” Right on time, Cas. There was a long pause. Dean couldn’t decide if he felt like he was going to jump up and hit the ceiling or throw up, so he just stayed where he was, on his bed, facedown, nose buried into the crook of his arm. “What’re you going to do?”

Dean really didn’t fucking know. He didn’t know, but… fuck it, he _missed_ him.

“I want front of house,” he said, before he could take it back. “And… do we… shit.” He pushed himself up and looked down at his left wrist. “I’m going back to Double D.”

He could already see it in his head, and the royal icing was gonna need time to set on the little cookie he had in mind. He reached for his recipe folder and started flipping. Medovik torte, _yeah,_ that was what he’d been thinking of. With the honey burned to caramelization, so it wasn’t gonna be too sweet… and what about Scottish shortbread for the cookie rather than sugar cookie? Hey, that’d be good, _much_ easier to control the sugar in that—

He could _feel_ Sam’s disapproval over his shoulder.

“What _?_ ” he demanded, looking up.

Sam had both hands on his hips. His bitchface was a thing of glory, _especially_ with those fucking flowing locks down to his shoulders. “You really don’t think you should _talk_ to him before, you know…”

Dean didn’t actually know what that motion was that Sam was making with his hands. Kneading? “Uh, what?”

“Before you, you know, make your Response?” Sam rolled his eyes. “I mean, I presume that’s why you’re going back to the bakery, right?”

In answer, Dean raised a hand, palm out, and pointed at the bright red stripe around his wrist. Then he went back to his papers.

“I know, Dean, I _realize_ , and I know Cas hasn’t exactly been around, but…” Dean didn’t know what expression was on his face, but whatever it was, Sam just shook his head, a blur of motion out of the corner of Dean’s eyes. “ _Only_ you guys. I swear to God, only you guys. Are you wearing short sleeves tomorrow? You should.”

Dean blinked, but he didn’t look up from the recipe. He didn’t want to see how Sam was looking at him. Just a little dab of sour cream icing mixed with a spoonful of the burnt honey… “You hate it when I go wrists out.” He’d done it for a few days after he got his colors, and grinned at people’s reactions, took their congratulations with a smile, but… when _Cas_ hadn’t been the one who’d come in and looked, he’d just, well.

He was used to flannels anyway.

“I sort of do, but…” Sam sighed, deeply, from Dean’s doorway. “Alright, I just know I’m gonna regret saying this, but… I’m pretty sure _Cas_ will like it.”

This time, Dean looked up. He wanted that to be true. That didn’t mean that it _was._ “I’m not letting him take it back,” and he hated, a little, what he heard in his voice. He didn’t know what anyone would call it—determination, desperation. Whatever it was, it was sharp and deep and it hurt his throat a little. “I _can’t_ , Sam. I just, I…”

But Sam was smiling at him, and he pushed up the sleeves of his flannel, holding out both his hands in front of him, meeting at the wrists. His soulbonds were even darker and redder than they’d been when he’d first gotten them—most people’s settled in color like that, matching their own skin tone rather than their soulmate’s, over the first year or so.

“He can’t take it back, Dean,” he said, and for the first time in his life Dean thought—huh. Maybe Sam really did understand. “More importantly, I can tell you for certain that he doesn’t want to. He’ll _never_ want to. That’s the whole point.”

Okay, so maybe Sammy was kind of the best little brother ever.

*_*_*_*

“So... uh... does this mean no more of those cookies you've been baking? Because they sell really well.”

Dean lifted his head, wiped his eyes, and raised his middle finger at his grinning little brother.

Nope. Should've sold him to the circus.

*_*_*_*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, I know I buried the lead... smut ahoy!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was not going to pin Cas against the wall of his apartment and lick into his mouth like the inside of a freshly filled waffle ice cream cone. He was not going to grab his ass to drag him against Dean’s body. He was not going to slot his leg between Cas’s thighs. 
> 
> Nope. None of that, Winchester.

Yeah, so after everything, Dean was really fucking determined to do this right. Yes, he was gonna kiss Cas—like he’d told him, that was just a thing that was gonna _happen_.

But Dean told himself that he was going to be proper about it. _Respectful_. He was going to just carefully taste him, just… enjoy him. Just a _little._ The way Cas had reacted when Dean had kissed the insides of his wrists, blue eyes going wide and all swallowing dark pupil, had been everything he could have possibly hoped for—

The things that Dean was not gonna do? He was not going to pin Cas against the wall of his apartment and lick into his mouth like the inside of a freshly filled waffle ice cream cone. He was not going to grab his ass to drag him against Dean’s body. He was not going to slot his leg between Cas’s thighs. Nope. Okay, _maybe_ he’d chance a really long, good kiss goodnight at the end of day, or something. Maybe with a little bit of tongue. If Cas was up for that, of course. Dean wanted to give them both a little something to think about.

Oh, who the fuck was he kidding. Dean had been thinking about it all through dinner. He wanted to give _Cas_ something to think about. It’d serve him right for being such a goddamned tease, too.

Alright, Dean could be honest with himself: he liked that Cas was feeling bold enough to _be_ a tease. He really, _really_ liked that. But Dean Winchester also had a pretty good grip on what was fantasy and what was reality. He had no trouble with a good fantasy, that was not a problem at all. _Especially_ since they’d been apart for so long.

But just ‘cause Cas was teasing didn’t mean he was _offering_.

(Dean _was_ sort of offering when they both had their shoes off and he ran his toes up the side of Cas’s ankle, but he’d behaved himself. Mostly. Especially when Cas just laughed like it tickled.)

Then Cas smiled a small, careful smile, and took him by the hand—Dean’s heart thumped so hard he heard it in his ears, holy _fuck_ he was such a sap—and dipped the tip of Dean’s fingers into the little blob of half-melted ice cream left on his plate.

Dean’s mouth went dry. He stopped trying to breathe.

What? What was—

Cas carried those fingers towards himself and Dean wondered a little bit if this was what _Cas_ had felt like when Dean had raised his hand to kiss his soulbond—breath caught, his heart beating in his ears, his pulse thrumming so hard Cas would probably feel it against his lips.

But Cas did not kiss his soulbond. Cas’s pink sin of a mouth came open, instead.

Maybe Cas _was_ a helluva fucking tease.

Or maybe when he’d threatened—promised?—to lick ice cream off Dean’s fingers, he was being exactly as blunt and literal as he’d _always been_.

Dean came to this realization as Cas slid those lucky, _lucky_ fingers into his soft, full mouth, dragging a line of melted ice cream over his bottom lip, still with his eyes fixed on Dean’s, and _oh fuck_. Against the cold pads of Dean’s fingertips, the inside of that mouth was _scorching_.

Dean really wasn’t prepared for this. He couldn’t look away from the sight of Cas’s full lips closing slowly around his skin. Fuck, he could feel his heart beating behind his _eyeballs_ , and he was pretty sure it did not belong there.

 _“Cas_ …” he tried to make it smooth. It came out as something halfway between a grunt and squeak and more embarrassing than either. Then Cas’s tongue slid soft between his fingertips—Cas _half-closed his eyes_ and took Dean’s fingers deeper, deeper—and Dean lost every word in his head.

He barely moved his head to let Dean back out—just a gentle push with his tongue was what nudged Dean’s fingers free. The soft pink tip of it followed, flicking over Dean’s fingertips like a tiny kiss goodbye before Cas pulled that invitation to sin back into his mouth.

He'd never looked away from Dean’s eyes. Dean didn’t know if he was drowning in blue or drowning in _heat_.

“I like it,” Cas murmured, “But it’s better with the salt from your skin.”

Oh God.

“Cas, you keep pulling shit like that and I’m gonna wanna put something else in that mouth,” Dean blurted out, and immediately found himself turning purple to match the bright red that flamed up Cas’s cheekbones and all but lit his dark hair on fire. Jesus fuck, _Winchester_ , what was that? Dean knew he had a brain to mouth filter. It even worked most days. _Shit_. “I—I mean—”

Cas’s chin came up. “Yes, I’d like that,” Castiel told him, immediately. “Let’s do that. _Now_.”

By the time Dean’s soul was back in his body and not flying around his head singing some kind of ridiculous disbelieving hallelujah, Cas was on his knees in front of him, and Dean didn’t even remember having spread his legs to fit him between them. The same guy who’d stuck out his hand to shake at Dean’s door and then made a face like he was considering suicide by humiliated awkwardness was meticulously working apart Dean’s jeans.

He'd had dreams like this, Dean noted, both from so far away and from so closely tucked inside his body he was afraid to _blink_.

Castiel’s long fingers were careful with the zip and even more careful when he gently extracted Dean out from the slit of his boxers. He kept a hand cradled gently around Dean’s base, just sort of… holding. The deep color of the soulbond on his wrist was so fucking gorgeous against the thin, delicate pale skin, and the head rush that Dean had gotten on peeling back Cas’s sleeve, seeing the clean line of scarlet on there and knowing _mine mine mine_ , not a dream, not a fantasy had been _surreal_. Dean hadn’t been able to resist having a taste. He wanted to do that again.

Holy fuck, Cas was looking down at his cock the _same way,_ though. Hungry. Then Cas licked his lips and Dean was pretty sure his soul left his body again.

“Cas…” he started, not even sure what he was going to say, there. _You don’t have to do this? We don’t have to rush?_ Because sure as hell the hard-on practically bobbing in Cas’s face was saying something very different. _Take your time, we can take it slow if that’s what you want? I swear to God I can control myself, I can, I really—_

Cas either couldn’t hear what was going through Dean’s brain, or he didn’t care. He _didn’t_ take it slow and easy. He didn’t start with a little stroke of his hand. He didn’t start by feeling Dean out. There was no teasing little lick or exploring touch.

Nope. Cas encircled Dean at the base with his fingers, dipped his head and took the whole tip of Dean’s cock into his mouth and just… kept going. Dean’s head hit the back of his chair with a loud _thunk._

Cas pulled back off him with a soft pop that sounded just fucking _obscene._ Dean’s whole body was still rebelling from being out of his mouth when Cas commanded, chiding and an octave into the basement, “Don’t hurt yourself.”

Dean whined. “ _Cas_!”

He didn’t expect Cas to close his eyes at that. He definitely didn’t expect Cas to say, those gorgeous blue eyes of his still squeezed shut, very softly, “I have dreamed of you saying my name that way.”

Yeah, Dean understood the feeling. Then again, maybe he’d have _fantasized_ really intensely about Castiel Novak blowing him at his kitchen table on their first date, but Dean hadn’t for a second of his existence thought that was a thing that might actually ever _happen._

It wasn’t the most expert blowjob in the world, far from it. There was nothing polished about it. It was spit-wet and messy, Cas couldn’t take more than about half of him in without having to back off again (and holy God in Heaven he tried more than once before he started making up the difference with his hand.)

But Dean could say two things with perfect sincerity: it was the most focused he’d ever seen anyone with their mouth around a cock, and it was the _best_ blowjob he’d ever had. He was being loud, he knew, and the noises that Dean was making were sort of not even human, but he couldn’t help it. What was—what the fuck was that Cas was doing with his tongue, _why_ was there just that hint of vibration and rumble that—

Cas was _moaning_ around him.

_Holy. Fucking—_

Dean slammed himself back hard enough in his chair that it broke the suction Cas had on him, and he clutched at his knee and at the edge of the table in front of him so he didn’t clutch into Cas’s hair and drag him harder down onto his cock. No, no.

Cas blinked at him, looking dazed. _He_ was dazed? How was _Cas_ the one who was dazed? But he licked his lips—oh fucking Jesus H Christ in a breadbasket Cas’s lips were _swollen_ —and asked, very politely, “You’re close? I could taste it.”

“Yeah,” Dean managed.

“Would you like to orgasm in my mouth?” Cas’s head tipped a little to the side, and it was so perfectly the expression he wore when he couldn’t decide which kind of bread to order in the bakery that day that Dean almost striped the hand still on him right then. Oh God. Cas was still fully dressed. He was still wearing his _tie_. Dean hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed that tie until he opened his front door and his eyes dropped to the neat Windsor knot settled right in the hollow of Cas’s collarbone. “Or on my face? Some people like that, don’t they? I wouldn’t mind.”

Dean’s cock _did_ drip down onto Cas’s hand, at that. Why was he even thinking about Cas’s tie at all? _Fuck_.

“How did I get this lucky?” Dean asked Cas, the ceiling, and the world in general. Cas laughed—he _laughed,_ like it was a joke—and dropped a kiss on the wet tip of Dean’s cock. Dean shuddered. “Can’t believe you’re even asking. Whatever you want, wherever you want me, angel.”

Cas squinted at him. Since he had his top lip resting on the bright pink tip of Dean’s cock, and he was _breathing_ on him, that could not possibly have been intimidating, but it was all really _fucking_ distracting. “’Angel?’” he asked, archly.

“Can we maybe have that conversation another time?” Dean managed.

Cas made a small harrumphing sound in his throat like he actually thought Dean might be humoring him, but he bent his head and got back down to business before Dean could think of anything clever to answer to that sarcastic little noise.

Dean suspected he should have been embarrassed by just how _fast_ Cas had him teetering on the edge again, his breath coming in harsh pants, his hips moving in helpless little twitches across the chair, his belly so tight with trying for control he didn’t have that he was surprised his abs hadn’t _cramped_.

But Dean had been embarrassed about a lot of things he’d done in his life, and demonstrating to his soulmate just how good he was at this probably wasn’t _ever_ going to be one of them. He allowed himself one warning rub of his hand through Cas’s soft, soft hair. “Cas—” he gasped, and looked down. “Cas, _real_ close, I—"

If he’d really been trying to hold back, looking down was not the right decision at all.

Cas met his eyes, expression tight with concentration and rosy mouth stretched tight around Dean’s cock. The soulbond on his right wrist, pressed against Dean’s thigh, couldn’t have gotten any brighter in color, even against Dean’s dull denim, but the contrast was so fucking beautiful. The fantastic blue in his eyes was almost drowned out by pupil and the wet cling of his eyelashes as Cas _watched_ him, and Dean didn’t know how it was possible to see _greed_ like that.

Then Dean felt, as much as saw, his soulmate smile. And nod. And _suck_.

He came apart at the seams with a shout, legs spread wide and unashamed, and his whole body shoved into the motion. He yanked his hand out from Cas’s hair and grabbed onto the edge of the table again just barely in time.

Cas’s hand pumped him gently through it but his mouth _holy shit holy mother of God_ didn’t leave Dean’s tip. Not only did Cas not gag or spit, feeling his mouth and tongue _moving_ in slow rocking pulses as he swallowed and kept swallowing nearly pulled down Dean’s curtains all over again.

He was keening and whimpering in oversensitivity by the time Cas let him slip out, carefully nudging him out with the blade of his tongue the way he’d done for Dean’s fingers earlier— _oh, that’s where he learned that,_ a tiny part of Dean managed, completely stupid right now—and not for anything in the whole goddamned world would Dean have ever asked him to stop.

The press of Cas’s cheek on Dean’s thigh, the soft rasp of his stubble on denim, and the slow, shaky deep breath he heaved out, felt a whole fucking lot like coming home. Dean let his hands drift back down off the table. He vaguely registered he was petting Cas’s hair. He definitely registered that both of Cas’s hands were on the curves of his thighs, and the feel of thumbs moving back and forth in little rubs against the creases of Dean’s groin shouldn’t have been really soothing, but they were. He could feel the slow motions of Cas’s chest resting against his shins.

“I should go,” Cas told him, abruptly, seconds or minutes or hours later, using Dean’s leg—Dean’s _good_ leg, he didn’t miss that—to lever himself slowly back to his feet. He was moving slowly enough that it was clear his knees were smarting.

Dean’s head jerked off the back of the chair where it was lolling. Shit, what was he doing? Just because he’d had a world-ending orgasm didn’t mean he got to neglect the guy who’d been on his knees giving it to him!

Dean reached out to put a hand on Cas’s hip, his thumb stroking right on the little dip of his belt line under his button-down. “Mm, in just a bit,” he murmured. Jesus, Cas had been giving the blowjob, but _Dean’s_ voice sounded ruined. “Lemme just—”

Cas twisted away and stepped deliberately back, and that woke Dean up from his afterglow _fast_.

“No, I don’t, I’m… I’m alright,” Cas told him, words coming all a-stumble.

“What?” Dean demanded, his eyebrows coming together, and he sat up in the chair, all his relaxation gone now. “ _No_ , Cas, what the Hell. I’m not leaving you with blue balls, are you kidding?”

Then something twisted hard in his gut. Cas was pink-faced and messy and wrecked and he looked so fucking _sexy,_ but he just didn’t… he wasn’t…

He didn’t look frustrated. He didn’t look _desperate_ for it the way Dean knew he’d been.

Oh.

Cas had seemed into it, he really had, but what if he just—except Dean knew better. Right? He did. He knew how not to spiral off into his own head. Jesus, that was understandable, wasn’t it? Just ‘cause _Dean_ really liked a cock in his mouth, himself, didn’t mean that it wasn’t hard, messy work—ha ha—and not everyone could keep their body interested through it. Even Dean needed a stroke or two sometimes after a really long BJ to get raring to go again, and that was really okay. Dean could help with that, he _wanted_ to help with that, if Cas’d just let him—

Cas took Dean’s hand and kissed where the soulbond crossed the bump of bone, on the outside of his wrist—shit, that was probably never going to stop turning Dean’s insides to pudding. Then he pressed Dean’s palm to the front of his slacks.

Right after the triumphant ringing of “ _Hell_ yeah, here we go,” in his ears Dean realized with a start that yeah, Cas was about half hard under there—but the cloth that Dean was touching was _damp._ A little slippery.

Holy shit.

“I’m alright,” Cas repeated, pink-cheeked and pretty but otherwise really, _really_ fucking calm about the fact that he’d just gotten off in his pants from sucking Dean’s cock. “But this will be uncomfortable soon, so I think I have to go home.”

And the soft, embarrassed little smile that tipped up at the edges of Cas’s lips suggested that maybe he was a little bit aware that the knowledge had Dean stunned completely dumb. Probably because it was written in giant letters all over Dean’s forehead. Dean didn’t want to reach up and check and see if he was drooling.

Yeah, no, Dean hadn’t done enough good in this world to deserve anything like him.

 _You don't have to leave,_ was on the tip of his tongue. _You don't have to go yet, we could put you in a pair of my boxers or something, get you set up for the night, you could stay over..._

Shit, he was really, really liking the thought of his boxers hanging off Cas's hips.

But…

Dean didn't look down at the stripes crossing his wrists—both his wrists, now. He didn’t have to.

“Next time, then?” Dean asked, hopefully.

“Yes, _please_ ,” Cas agreed, leaning over him and putting one hand—shaky, Dean could see that now—on the back of the chair behind Dean’s shoulder. In this position, Dean could see the red on his skin just out of the corner of his eyes.

Cas gave him their first kiss with his mouth still bitter with Dean himself, and Dean heard himself whine again, his hips straining upwards completely pointlessly.

It wasn’t as if he was gonna get hard again anytime soon, but his body was going to give it a damned good try.

*_*_*_*

So here they were, it was next time, and at least they made it through dinner _and_ a movie without one of them ( _Dean_ ) spontaneously imploding.

Dean thought some of that might have been because Cas had seated himself on Dean’s right on the sofa, and pulled out his knitting. Striped socks. Dean grinned. “You gonna make me something?” he teased, resting his chin on Cas’s shoulder and nudging the dark run of stubble with the tip of his nose. (He _was_ teasing, honest. Dean’s guy, sitting here knitting quietly, in Dean’s apartment? Fuck, this was the _best_.)

“I was thinking of it,” Cas answered, his needles clicking softly as he started knitting, chin tilted up to watch the movie rather than his fingers, and definitely not looking at Dean. His elbow shifted gently at Dean’s side. Dean wanted to _lick_ him. Then the corner of Cas’s mouth turned up, just slightly. “ _If_ you’re good,” he said, in that voice that went straight to Dean’s… well, not _that_ head.

Oh shit.

Well, so much for Dean being patient. “Yeah?” he croaked. “What’s that mean?”

The other side of Cas’s mouth turned. “Not talking during movies.”

Fucking. Goddamned. _Tease_.

(Dean bit his ear. Cas swatted him, and then the sassy sonofabitch went back to his _knitting_.)

About an hour into the movie, Cas put his knitting down beside him, tucking it back into a little yellow drawstring bag decorated with bees. He put a hand down on Dean’s bad knee instead. He left it there through the rest of the movie, his thumb and palm playing slow circles into the tight muscle and bands of scar.

Dean wasn’t sure if either of them was paying attention to The Force Awakens anymore, ‘cause _he_ wasn’t. He had _no idea_ what to make of the quiet look on Cas’s face as he was massaging the tension out of Dean’s leg with his eyes fixed on the movie, but it was probably the prettiest thing he’d ever seen—his sapphire eyes gone soft and a little droopy at the corners, lips just a little parted, shoulder loose where it rubbed against Dean’s.

It wasn’t until the credits were rolling that Dean put a name to it.

Contentment. That was _contentment_.

Some days, Dean was still pretty sure he was going to wake up. He was just going to wake up, and there was going to be no little cloth mask with slices of cherry pie on it in a box in his bedside drawer, and no red on his wrists, and no nerdy accountant with a shy smile and knitting needles wearing matching stripes on his skin. He was too afraid to pinch himself and find out.

“Good, right?” Dean asked, turning towards Cas as Rey’s Theme played softly in the background. He knew the dialogue _by heart_ and he couldn’t remember a single scene of it. But he was pretty sure he’d never forget the way Cas tilted his head back in his direction, and the low light from the TV kissed the angle of his jaw.

Cas considered. “I liked it,” he agreed, turning the rest of the way to face him—very, very close. “But now it’s ‘next time,’” his awkward, serious soulmate told him, deliberate and straight-faced. “I would like to top, please.”

Every single one of Dean’s careful, well-shored-up resolutions to take this slow so he didn’t scare Cas crashed and burned. If it was possible for all of Dean’s blood to leave his brain and recenter elsewhere without him actively blacking out, it had just happened.

“I am every single possible kind of down with that,” he answered.

Cas’s head tilted to the side. His eyebrows pinched together, just a little.

There was never going to be a time when that ‘explain yourself, please’ look didn’t make Dean want to kiss the breath out of him. So he did. And he laughed. “That means _fuck yes,_ Cas.”

Yeah, they talked about it. Cas had come with all the right supplies, prepared as fucking _ever_ —in their own little bag, even. Two kinds of lube—one flavored, one not, well, _okay then_. Three of condoms. (Ribbed? Huh.) Dean grinned, grabbed the lubes, and punted the condoms off the side of the bed. “No thanks, _soulmate,_ ” he told him.

His cock was _not_ prepared for how Cas lit up so bright at that. Actually, no. His _heart_ wasn’t prepared for the joy on Cas’s face—what his cock wasn’t prepared for was Cas saying, looking deep into Dean’s eyes and one hand set firmly on Dean’s shoulder, “I wanted to be inside you with only skin between us, but it didn’t seem polite to say so.”

Polite. Fucking _polite_. The word was gonna be the death of Dean Winchester.

“You’ve really gotta stop doing that,” he managed, a hand pressed to his chest. He could feel his pulse _everywhere_. Dean wasn’t a teenager anymore, his body couldn’t _take_ shocks to the system like that.

Cas frowned at him. “Doing what?”

_Jesus._

Which was why Cas was moving inside him, bare and lubed up, in slow, careful strokes that ached and shivered and whispered. Somewhere far away, something small in Dean’s brain was telling him he really had to unwrap his legs from where his ankles were locked behind Cas’s waist, so that Cas could actually get some _leverage_.

That voice was very small and very far away, though, and Cas seemed pretty happy right where he was, even with Dean hanging off him. Dean didn’t _want_ to let go, anyway. Those little pitching, grinding motions in and out of him were just hitting the spot, even if they weren’t hitting—

Dean’s brain could come up with horrible puns even in the middle of the best sex of his life. Amazing.

“You’re smiling,” Cas murmured, his voice staggeringly deep as whiskey poured down a flight of stairs.

“Uh-huh,” Dean agreed, hazily, and smiled wider as he pulled Cas down on top of him.

Kissing at this angle wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. It wasn’t easy, period. Their heights didn’t quite match up, and even with Dean’s ass up on a pillow his back kind of got crunched by being folded over like this. So, yeah, Dean grumbled and let his legs back down, and they rearranged.

But the little fleeting bites of Cas’s lips brushing dry against his over and over as they reached and rocked against each other made him ache and want so good, Cas’s hand carefully pressing up on the thigh of his good leg, and even the stretch of that felt fucking wonderful.

It wasn’t enough to make Dean come, not yet, but it wouldn’t take much to get him there—his cock was hard and it was gonna stay that way, smearing precome across them both and dipping into Cas’s soft, flat belly. Cas moving deep in him in little leisurely strokes felt like everything, and his dark hair was pure sex, his full bob of a mouth tipped up in a smile to match Dean’s.

God, Dean’s grumpy knitter looked so _happy_ to be right where he was.

“Fuck, I love you,” slipped out from between Dean’s lips without any of his permission.

Cas froze on top of him, jerking back, with the hand he’d had leveraging Dean’s thigh clamping so hard Dean felt the scrape of fingernails. Cas’s blue eyes snapped back open, they were wide as the sky, and fuck Dean almost lost his hard-on right there. Stripes be damned, it was too early, it was way too damned early to be saying shit like that, and _especially_ not in the middle of—

“Dean,” Cas whispered, and he stopped moving. But he didn’t pull out—he settled _in_ against him, an unexpectedly firm thrust, and Dean struggled for breath for a moment. He was so deep Dean wondered if he could feel him in his throat. He really shouldn’t be thinking about that, now. No matter how good it felt.

Shit. “I know, I just, I—” It occurred to Dean that he could just write it off. People said shit like that all the time during sex, right? They didn’t always mean it, they—Dean _could_ plaster a smile on his face and a joke on his lips, he was good at that—

 _Dean_ didn’t say things like that, though, not ever. And he didn’t have to look at the red on his wrists, on Cas’s, to know that he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ lie like that.

“Sorry,” he whispered to the ceiling over Cas’s shoulder. “I know it’s too soon. I just—”

 _I meant it, though_.

Cas didn’t try to catch his gaze, and Dean appreciated that.

“I knew there was no-one else for me the first time I saw you singing with the mop,” he told him, instead, and Dean’s whole heart made like a damned pancake and flipped over. Cas lowered his head and kissed Dean’s collarbone. “You got so excited about it… there was water all over your shoes, and you started swearing. I didn’t know that was what I was feeling. I didn’t… I didn’t let myself know, I guess. But that was when.”

“I don’t remember that,” Dean admitted, his voice knotting up in his throat. _Cas._

“I wouldn’t expect you to. It would have been very ordinary, for you.” Cas lifted his head again and smiled, soft and small and crooked. This time he did find Dean’s gaze. “That’s the point.” Then his smile tipped, ruefully, while Dean was still getting his breath back. “Even if I _still_ think that song shouldn’t be sung in public.”

Dean blinked. Wait. He felt himself starting to grin. “’Tastes so good, make a grown man—'”

Okay, maybe breaking into song was someone _no-one_ should do in the middle of getting fucked, but Cas had pretty much asked for it.

Cas’s eyes narrowed just enough to count as a threat. He shoved his hips forwards, pushed back into him with a hard thrust that curled Dean’s toes against the bedsheets, and Dean’s voice broke against the chorus into something that sounded almost like a wail.

“Yes, that’s _much_ better,” Cas agreed, but his eyes were bright as stars as he propped himself up over Dean, his hand tucking behind Dean’s knee and pushing his leg carefully upwards to open him again. “May I—”

Dean had no idea what exactly what Cas was asking permission for, ‘cause really, the only answer to that was “ _Fuck,_ yes.”

He might’ve answered a little differently if he realized that Cas was gonna spend the next ten minutes nudging and rocking and working Dean so open he could barely remember that he’d ever had to adjust to him at all (and Cas was _not_ little, not in any fucking sense of the word.) In a different world, Dean might’ve thought the expression on his soulmate’s face was just plain pretty—eyes half-closed with just the slightest flash of blue, sweat brightening up his temples, his face set with concentration as he focused. Except Castiel Novak was focusing on just the right angle to nail the spot inside Dean that made him nearly arch off the bed, and it was pretty thoroughly driving Dean _out of his mind_.

Dean could feel the sweat slicking where their bodies met and he was squirming around so hard it occurred to him he might have to worry about throwing Cas off, but he couldn’t keep _still_. Hell, he couldn’t _look_ at Cas watching him get taken apart—those blue eyes wrenching him wide open, like he was cataloguing the way Dean’s ass clenched tight when he went this way or that, or the way Dean’s eyes nearly rolled back in his head when the head of Cas’s thick cock rubbed broad and firm as two crooked fingers against his prostate.

It hadn’t really occurred to him that when Cas said he wanted to top, he didn’t _just_ mean he wanted to have his dick up Dean’s ass.

It still _didn’t_ really occur to him until Cas leaned over and in and pinned Dean’s right hand hard to the mattress over his head. Dean fought upwards to get him deeper, to rub his cock between their stomachs to just have that little bit _more_ , and their fingers locked together. “ _Cas,”_ he moaned, opening his eyes. He ran the fingers of his free hand down the long line of Cas’s back and grabbed onto his firm ass, digging into the flex of muscle, and Cas’s groan was so deep Dean thought he could almost feel it between their bodies. “C’mon, baby, you gotta—I’m so—"

Cas’s face was close over him, not just pink now, but all the way flushed down his neck, the bite marks that Dean had left on the long bow of his collarbone almost purple. His mouth was open and he looked nearly as desperate as Dean felt. The pink slip of his tongue peeked out as he fumbled, almost overbalanced right onto Dean’s chest, and leaned forward—the change in angle put his face right over Dean’s, and Dean licked his lips, so fucking ready for another kiss.

Then Cas glanced up and his eyes stuck on something there. A shudder rippled over Cas’s entire body, and the rough, jerky thrust that came after felt so close to an orgasm that it almost toppled Dean right over the edge. Dean might’ve been insulted by something taking that attention and the look in Cas’s eyes off of him, but he was pretty sure nothing _could_ insult him right now, so he looked up, too.

Cas was looking at their hands, over Dean’s head—their fingers locked together, knuckles white as they gripped each other too tight, inside of wrist to inside of wrist. They were pressed so close together that in the haze of sweat and heat, Dean thought their red soulbond stripes almost mingled.

Dean hadn’t realized he was _so_ close. He also hadn’t realized where Cas’s other hand was going. So there wasn’t any way to stop himself from gripping in and gripping tight, grabbing hold when Cas’s fingers closed dry over his cock. Cas’s pounding into him was a little too wild, rhythm shaky, and that was perfect—so perfect, Dean _wanted_ him shaky and trembling with it, wanted him _—_

“Dean, _Dean_ ,” Cas moaned into his cheek. “I love you, _yes_ —”

Dean didn’t try to stop himself from spilling come in thick streaks across their stomachs, fucking his hips up into Cas’s hand, down onto Cas splitting him open, squeezing his eyes shut to ride through every deep pulse of it. His voice could’ve broken glass for how loud it was, echoing. Cas was making little growling noises completely unashamedly into his neck as he shuddered so deeply Dean thought he was feeling it both inside and out.

Then he _was_ feeling it both inside and out as Cas trembled and let out a sound like a low, shaky sob. Dean wrenched his eyes back open—sticky; there were tears matting his lashes—to watch, ‘cause he sure as fuck wasn’t going to miss this. He had one hand on the small of Cas’s back, grabbing him close and pulling him in, and his soulmate shook over him, mouth open as he panted. “Yeah, Cas, yeah,” Dean told him, breathless and still riding out the last of his aftershocks. “That’s it, gorgeous, _c’mon_.”

Cas’s back arched and he shoved in one last time—he said Dean’s name with a voice blurred harsh with want. He came, trembling and open-mouthed and almost completely silent, body moving in the tiniest, sweetest little jerks.

For every dream that Dean had had about Cas fucking him brainless, he couldn’t have imagined _this_.

Cas went limp on top of him and Dean’s breath puffed out in an _oof_ , but when Cas started to mumble an apology and pull out Dean managed the coordination to get one leg thrown up and over his hip to keep him in place. Might as well enjoy that they’d gone bare. “Hey,” he whispered. “Stay awhile.”

Cas blinked dazedly at him. He had to clear his throat twice before he could talk, and _holy crap_ his voice right now. “I’m not leaving. I don’t think I can walk yet.”

“Not…” Dean didn’t even know where the laugh came from, but it shook them both for just a second, they were pressed so close. “ _In_ me, doofus.”

“Oh.”

Cas dipped his forehead to rest against Dean’s. Those blue eyes were watching him, sleepily, from very close, Cas’s face slack and soft like he was hearing heavenly choruses. (Dean knew the feeling. His ears _were_ still kind of ringing.)

“Hello, Dean,” he finally said, his lips just barely feathering a breath against Dean’s own.

Dean was probably going to have to worry about getting unintentional hard-ons every time he heard that greeting from here on. Right now, he couldn’t bring himself to mind.

“Hey, Cas,” he answered, and brought his free hand to the back of his Cas’s head to tuck him in at the right angle for a kiss. He didn’t let go of the hand holding his, over his head.

Cas eased out eventually and toppled heavily onto the bed beside him, but he didn’t go anywhere—just wriggled right back and plopped his chin onto Dean’s shoulder, clumsy and uncoordinated in the way that the best sex made everyone. Dean’s smile was so wide it hurt a little as he rearranged his legs and stretched out his back, then reached out an arm to tuck Cas closer against him, running a lazy finger down Cas’s arm, his shoulder. The slick, soft line of Cas’s cock pressed against his thigh as Cas bent his knee just enough to rest it over Dean’s. Dean could definitely feel the little bit of soreness and wet of him inside. It’d been a long time. He’d be feeling that ache for awhile—long after he washed the come off his belly. _Mm_. Yeah.

“Dean?”

“Yeah?” he mumbled, turning his face to press his lips against Cas’s forehead.

“That looked like it felt very nice.”

 _Nice._ Jesus fuck. “Goddamned master of understatement, that’s you.” Dean snorted, a little helplessly, and reached up to ruffle Cas’s hair from where Cas had his head burrowing deeper against Dean’s shoulder. Then he blinked. “Wait, are you fishing for compliments? _You?_ ”

“No.” Cas paused, and turned his face to nuzzle Dean’s collarbone with his whole cheek. God, the rub of his stubble felt _really_ good, even though Dean’s whole body felt like one big ball of creamed cookie dough right now. “Next time I need you inside me.”

Alright, _now_ Dean was awake again.

“Uh,” he managed, as his cock tried to get hard all over again, _yet again,_ and Dean was still _not_ a teenager, so that was still a weird feeling. “You like that, too, huh?” Dean was all kinds of down with doing that. Maybe tomorrow. After breakfast? Definitely after some hydration. Or maybe after he’d slept for a week…

“I haven’t had the opportunity to experience any receptive anal play before,” Cas told him, serious as ever. Dean almost choked. “But I think I would like it, with you.”

Holy crap. Cas’d never… he wanted Dean to… Dean didn’t have a virgin kink, and it was very amply fucking clear that Cas was _not_ a virgin, thanks. But the fact that they were soulmates—well, that meant that no-one but _Dean_ was ever gonna see the look on Cas’s face when he felt that first slip of a finger around and around, when he figured out just how good it felt to _relax_ into it, take in that first intense, deep hint of a stretch…

Dean managed a really eloquent sound of “ _Awk._ ”

Cas blinked, and Dean felt the flutter of eyelashes against the bony crest of his shoulder. “I told you, planning is important. So. Next time?”

Cas had, he’d said _exactly_ that, but…

“Don’t think I’m gonna survive these ‘next times’ of yours, angel,” Dean muttered, dazedly watching his erection start to chub up again even though his thighs were still trembling and he wasn’t sure his bad knee was gonna hold him up at all yet.

Cas’s shoulders drooped a little. “Oh.”

Dean peeked sideways at him. Cas looked a little disappointed. He actually looked _disappointed!_ Jesus fucking Christ Dean’s soulmate really was gonna be the death of him.

Dean collapsed the rest of the way back down onto his back and started giggling, helpless and happy. “But holy shit,” he laughed, hauling Cas up his body and finishing his chuckles against the soft, puzzled tuck of his soulmate’s lips. “What a way to go!”

Cas squinted suspiciously at him.

Yeah, he’d thought he finally got the soulmate thing, back when he first fell for Cas. This was what it meant to love someone, no matter how much it hurt. This was what it meant to look into someone’s eyes and never want to look away. This was worth forever, if you were lucky enough for it, and even if you weren’t, just that person being there was _enough_.

This was why people Offered—because they wanted to give their person _everything_ , and they wanted them to reach out and take it from their hand.

He'd thought he understood it.

Dean lay in his bed and laughed, and stroked his soulmate’s fluffy, sex-sweaty hair, and let Cas sigh something about how strange he was into his lips. Cas sounded weirdly pleased about it.

Yeah, Dean hadn’t had a _fucking clue_.

~fin~

**Author's Note:**

> I love this universe, but had no real plans of coming back to it. I'd also never written an alternate POV story (I always worry I'll run out of momentum.) I just thought, "hey, if my gift person would like a sexy bit of epilogue, I can do that!" 
> 
> Then [shipperofdarkness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperofdarkness/pseuds/shipperofdarkness) wrote me a complete love letter of a comment, wondering what Dean was thinking throughout Stripes and Stitches, imagining just how badly Sam teases him, contemplating the various options for what Dean did after he opened that baggie...
> 
> Here we are, proof that if you feed a hungry writer enough, she'll explode and words will come flying out at you.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed Dean's view of this whole thing!


End file.
